• 6/28/2016

Cooperation agreement with German Youth Institute (Deutsche Jugendinstitut – DJI) signed

New joint professorship for empirical youth research

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) and German Youth Institute (Deutsche Jugendinstitut – DJI) have entered into a partnership, at the core of which is a newly created Professorship for Empirical Social Research in Children and Adolescents. The partnership, which was sealed with a cooperation agreement, strengthens the commitment of TUM in the field of social and political sciences. For the DJI, the cooperation provides the opportunity to expand its own empirical research together with TUM.

The headquarters of the German Youth Institute (Deutsche Jugendinstitut – DJI) in Munich. (PHOTO: DJI)
The headquarters of the German Youth Institute (Deutsche Jugendinstitut – DJI) in Munich. (PHOTO: DJI)

Headquartered in Munich, the German Youth Institute is one of Europe’s largest non-university social science research institutes. Since its establishment in 1963 by the German Bundestag, the institute has focused on current and socially relevant issues at the interface of business, politics and science. The institute has a long tradition of carrying out large-scale trend studies on the living conditions of children, adolescents and families. For example, roughly 30,000 people are surveyed every four years as part of the “Aufwachsen in Deutschland: Alltagswelten – AID:A” study, which was launched in 2009 and examines the everyday lives of children growing up in Germany.

Conception and execution of these trend studies are based at the DJI in the “Department of Social Monitoring and Methodology”. The new Professorship for Empirical Social Research in Children and Adolescents at the TUM will take the helm of this department. A focal point of the research will be the prevention of problematic courses of development in children and adolescents. In the quantitative studies on this topic, it is important to take into account as many individual, social and institutional influences as possible – be it origin, ethnical background or the economic and professional situation of parents.

NEW Possibilities for Research and teaching

The chance to work with the large data pool of the DJI will not just benefit the research of the TUM, but also its students, as the TUM will be expanding its corresponding range of courses in conjunction with the new professorship.

“With the new joint professorship, we are further strengthening our involvement in the social and political sciences,” says TUM President Wolfgang A. Herrmann. “In times of profound technological change, a technical university of standing must have a stronger focus on the social impact of such transformation. Thanks to this cooperation with the German Youth Institute on the prevention of youth delinquency, we are creating a bridge with our Department of Sport and Health Sciences, which places particular emphasis on prevention research.” The Bavarian School of Public Policy (Hochschule für Politik – HfP) officially became part of TUM in 2014, and the new course of study will be run here in the fall of 2016.

“Our cooperation agreement with TUM completes a program of collaboration we have embarked on with other renowned scientific institutions. It also strengthens Munich as a science location. For the appointment of the new professorship, we will be looking for nationally and internationally renowned candidates who are capable of providing the survey research of the DJI with further momentum,” says Dr. Thomas Rauschenbach, Director of the German Youth Institute.

Technical University of Munich

Corporate Communications Center

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